STUDY GUIDE: UNIT 4 – SENSATION and PERCEPTION
AP Psychology
In addition to the information in this study guide, you are also responsible
for all of the content in textbook (Chapter 6), all information from class
notes/discussions, all handouts and graphic organizers.
It’s AP – it’s all fair game 
Terms & Concepts
All Terms & Concepts to Remember on page 288-289
Big Ideas
1: What are sensation and perception? What do we mean by bottom-up and top-down
processing?
2: What are absolute and difference thresholds, and do stimuli below the absolute threshold
have any influence?
 Psychophysics
 Weber’s Law
3: What is the function of sensory adaptation?
 Sensory adaptation
 Selective attention
4: What is the energy that we see as visible light?
 Transduction
 Wavelength
 Intensity
5: How does the eye transform light energy into neural messages?
 Diagram of eye & retina
 photoreceptors
6: How does the brain process visual information?
 Shape detection
 Visual information processing
7: What theories help us understand color vision?
 Young-Helmholtz trichromatic theory
 Color blindness & opponent colors
8: What are the characteristics of air pressure waves that we hear as sound?
 Frequency & intensity
9: How does the ear transform sound energy into neural messages?
 Diagram of the ear
 Intensity/loudness
10: What theories help us understand pitch perception?
 Frequency theory
 Place theory
11: How do we locate sounds?
12: What are the common causes of hearing loss, and why does controversy surround cochlear
implants?
 Conduction hearing loss
 Sensorineural hearing loss
 Cochlear implants – why the controversy?
13: How do we sense touch and our body’s position and movement? How do we experience
pain?
 Kinesthesis & vestibular sense
 Gate control theory & biopsychosocial influences
 Pain control
14: How do we experience taste?
 Sensory interaction
15: How do we experience smell?
16: How did the Gestalt psychologists understand perceptual organization?
17: How do figure-ground and grouping principles contribute to our perceptions?
 Form perception & grouping
18: How do we see the world in three dimensions?
 Depth perception & visual cliff
 Binocular & monocular cues
19: How do we perceive motion?
20: How do perceptual constancies help us organize our sensations into meaningful
perceptions?
 Perceptual constancy, color constancy, size-distance relationship, lightness constancy
 Ames room
21: What does research on sensory restriction and restored vision reveal about the effects of
experience?
 Perceptual interpretation (Kant & Locke)
 Facial recognition
22: How adaptable is our ability to perceive?
 Perceptual adaptation
23: How do our expectations, contexts, and emotions influence our perceptions?
 Perceptual set
 Context effects
 Cultural context
24: How do human factors psychologists work to create user-friendly machines and work
settings?
 Human factors psychologists
25: What are the claims of ESP, and what have most research psychologists concluded after
putting these claims to the test?